Observations Do drug and other specialty courts reduce recidivism? President Trump Wants Drug Courts-Do They Work? Like evaluations of programs for serious offenders, outcomes for drug, mental health, and veteran’s courts are limited to small decreases in recidivism. For many, the focus is on low-level, low-risk offenders who may not need intensive treatment. Author Leonard […]

Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Post-Masters’ Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Article Three […]

Observations So the bottom line is that we can “manage” the probation population by limiting interactions. But unlike the advocates, I’m not going to tell you that it’s without a risk to public safety. The bottom line is that people caught up in criminal activity tend to continue their offending. The American criminal justice system […]

Subtitle We may be making progress as to reducing recidivism in the United States. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Post-Masters’ Certificate of Advanced […]

Observations Is Project Exile Donald Trump’s and Jeff Sessions’ primary anti-violence effort? Launched in 1997 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, homicides in Richmond exhibited a 22 percent yearly decline, compared with the average reduction of about 10 percent per year for other large U.S. cities. Author Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for […]

Bronx (NY) Mental Health Court Doesn’t Work Our notes: Specialty courts are popping up throughout the country and that’s good; the criminal justice system is trying to find ways of dealing with people who need to be diverted. Just note that there are some who claim too much success from specialty courts. Over promising is […]

The US Sentencing Commission modified its guidelines affecting 46,000 federal inmates with drug distribution charges to be released (after judicial review) approximately two years early with 6,000 being released now throughout the country. The breakdown of the 6,000 by state of release is below. Approximately 25 percent of those released are not US citizens and will be […]

Adult Mental Health Courts Receive Mixed Ratings Adult Mental Health Courts are specialized, treatment-oriented, problem-solving courts that divert mentally ill offenders away from the criminal justice system and into court-mandated, community-based treatment programs in order to reduce recidivism and decrease the amount of contact that mentally ill individuals have with the criminal justice system. The […]

Incarceration sentences were almost evenly divided between prison (36%) and jail (37%) in 2009. Felony convictions were more likely to result in a sentence to prison (42%) than jail (33%). Nearly all incarceration sentences for misdemeanor convictions were to jail (53%) rather than prison (3%).

Gentlereaders: The research continues the generally positive results from speciality courts focusing on an array of criminal justice issues like drugs, probation violations, prisoner reentry and mental health issues. There is a point where the Department of Justice should take a harder look as to why so many court-related programs are claiming success. In all probability, […]

What happens when a major player in the criminal justice system breaks ranks with their partners? According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “That’s what happened when Former District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, stung by reports that her office had consistently low conviction rates, defended her performance Monday and criticized the rest of the city’s criminal justice […]

Crime in America.Net We posted an article on a 20 year study of a successful offender-based treatment program addressing an effort to teach criminal offenders to change their thinking patterns (Cognitive Based Therapy) as to how they dealt with life’s issues (i.e., you don’t use violence to solve everyday problems). We received reader inquiries as to additional […]

The original article was created in 2010, it was updated in 2016. We made some minor adjustments but after review, we believe that it remains accurate and useful. However, we offered an updated post in 2014 on the same topic at https://www.crimeinamerica.net/2014/01/13/42-percent-of-felony-convictions-result-in-a-sentence-to-prison-33-percent-go-to-jail/, we suggest that you include it in your analysis. My book: “Amazon Hot New […]

Chief Lawrence Battiste of the Mobile Police Department in Alabama sadly reports the death of Officer Justin Billa. Officer Billa was shot and killed as he and another officer attempted to contact and apprehend a murder suspect. Officers received a call of a woman lying in the street. They determined the victim had been murdered... […]

The Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles yesterday unanimously recommended clemency for Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, the first time in a decade the BPP has recommended against a death sentence. Whitaker orchestrated the murder of his family and his father, the only surviving victim, has been campaigning to save him from the death chamber. I mention […]

Calling illegal-gun trafficking “contagious,” a Chicago researcher says that despite his city's strict gun control, someone who wants to use a weapon to commit a crime can easily obtain one using social media or other networks on the underground market.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) is a national leader in leveraging evidence-based policies to sustain the state’s strong fiscal position, foster economic growth, and improve government efficiency. Over the governor’s seven years in office, he has created jobs, tripled Tennessee’s rainy day fund, decreased the state’s debt, and invested in education. This year, Gov....

States send less than half as many youth to residential facilities as they did in the late 1990s, but new data from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention show that many juveniles in out-of-home placements were not confined for serious and violent crimes. In 2015, 23 percent of youth in […]

After peaking in 2008, the nation’s imprisonment rate fell 11 percent over eight years, reaching its lowest level since 1997, according to an analysis of new federal statistics by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Thousands of communities and families across the country are still reeling from 2017—one of the most destructive and expensive years on record for natural disasters. Coastal and inland floods inundated a broad swath of the country—from California to Texas and Missouri to Florida—damaging homes, roads, and bridges, and closing many institutions, including schools.

This ongoing, occasional series features interviews with a variety of influential leaders who discuss how they became involved in criminal justice reform, how their views have evolved—sometimes in unexpected ways—and what’s needed to sustain progress.

The courts have found that the Met failed in its civic duty to serve victims of a heinous crime. As a society we will have to confront the role of the victim in the post-sentencing process tooThere is no doubt that the Metropolitan police committed terrible errors in their handling the case of John Worboys, […]

An off-duty Prince George’s County police officer was shot and killed Wednesday morning while helping a woman next door in an incident of domestic violence, the department’s police chief said. Cpl. Mujahid Ramzziddin, a 14-year veteran of the department, was fatally shot by a man with a shotgun...

Democrats are poised to reject three Republican bills to loosen restrictions on guns Wednesday as the national debate about firearms following last week’s high school shooting in south Florida has forcefully made its way into Colorado and the state legislature.

Each case demonstrates how the tools used to fight crime and measure crime trends in the United States are outdated. Even as certain kinds of crimes are declining, others are increasing — yet because so many occur online and have no geographic borders ...

The Dunwoody Police Department is currently looking for Laverne Harold Squires, age 79, a Dunwoody Resident. Squires is suffering from Alzheimers. He was last seen leaving his residence at approximately 4:30PM on Friday. He left in ...